I've been away

I have just come back from a wonderful holiday - one of the best I've had for years. Two weeks in Italy at a friends apartment near Lucca, a week in London and Cheltenham seeing family, a week in a Normandie farmhouse, a wedding in France and then home!

This is the view from my bedroom - not bad waking up there every morning for two weeks?
The fruit and vegetables in Italy in summer are beautiful - favourites were raw garlick, asparagus and corgettes.

Things to do in Italy included:

lunching in Lucca

giving advice to Deb's workmen!

Shopping in Florence

more to come on UK and France.

visitors and changes

I had some visitors for curry last Thursday - lovely to see them!

Bill was here too on wednesday and he and Marina hung the blinds on the verandah tht I had sweated over last weekend and been unable to do (he said that I couldn't have done them on my own - it is a two person job). I can still get a glimpse of the4 veryrich undies and mops but it is much better and when I come home, I will buy a potted plant to fill in the gaps.

I am changing the study to suit me - this is part of the plan......

this is what I hope they will look like, but now the room looks like this:

My veggie garden is doing well - what a shame a lot of the veggies will go to seed while I'm away. Tonight I will be eating my own butter beans:

a shy little bird

Look closely........

there's someone hiding in the garden:

I think he's very happy there - particularly as I got up at 6.30 and pruned the hedges!

The war on brown continues - the back of the cupboard is now white and the books that go back into it will not be war books!!!!

I'll put some of the miliitary history in the filing cabinet and will offer the rest to the USC for their library. I just feel that it's time for me to have the study more to my taste!

Easter and that wedding

Easter in Victoria was lovely - quite cold at night but very pleasant and sunny during the days. Some people even felt it was warm enough for a swim?!

but others preferred to wear jumpers and stay out of the water!!!

It was lovely to see FVT&P who looked after me very well.....

A bonus was seeing Fi - hopefully about a week before baby FiNate appears:

I went to friends to watch Will and Kate getting married. Took my jewels out of the Diva safe. I almost needed an armed guard!!

the family grows

Oh dear - they had a baby but it had some genetic problems such as no eyes, nose or white bib front so they've decided to leave it at that:

crafty things are all finished now (except for red and white)

Can you see the mistake in the red and white?

Oh Well - off to Victoria for a few dsys of family and friends!!!!!

the other bill and kate

the happy couple are now sitting on the table in front of the telly getting ready for their big day.

I hope they'll be very happy!!!!!!
I saw this video today which indicates that there are some broken hearts at St Andrews. for some reason I can't post the link here but have a look on You tube and search for Royal Romance

Played with some fabrics on my day off and tidied the sewing room up a bit. I started making this:

and looked at this again - still can't work out if I like it????

I also cut up some blue patches for Floss which I will bring down at Easter

I went to see a lovely film this evening - "Afternoons with Margueritte" -just nice things happened - nothing mean or nasty. Gerard Depardieu - former sex symbol- has become extremely fat. However, he can still run and walk and make love and still has something that makes you want to like him!

Indian Summer

It's quite hot here today and we've had a bit of rain during the week so the vegetation is again getting out of control. This is the view from my front verandah now:

If you look hard you will see that I can see Mr M over the road!
Other things that are doing well are

The new creeper for the arch

the incredibly fast growing mulberry which I will probably have to cut down next year?

and the pawpaw which went in at christmas and is now flowering!

In the meantime......

the bunnies are performing a rite to bring on Easter

these are some legs for a footstool which will go with the newly covered chair (whenever that happens)

and William is wearing clothes - although I'm sorry to say that he will probably NEVER have any hair or a wife or a supporter or a dog or family!!!!!